1. Related Field
The present invention relates to a method for steering a UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, to enable a high level command of the UAV, and to a system for steering the UAV to enable high level command of the UAV.
2. Description of Related Art
An UAV is an aircraft that is flown by an operator without a human crew on board the aircraft. Their largest uses are in military applications, but are expected to find many civilian applications in the future.
A UAV can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely. Some UAVs is equipped with autonomous guidance systems and automatic control systems which give the UAV the capacity to act as an independent flying vehicle.
UAVs can be equipped with different payloads for information collection and are able to perform tasks such as surveillance, reconnaissance, target acquisition, dissemination of target data and battle damage assessment.
Usually two operators control one UAV. One operator handles the flying commands, and another operator handles the payloads on the UAV. There are also high level commands available which give the operators the ability to give more focus on the mission instead of flying. One example is a high level command that steers the UAV to a specific spatial position. Another example of a high level command is one in which the operator sets up a list of waypoints that the UAV will fly to, starting with the first waypoint in the list and so on. These types of high level commands however still require at least two operators. One operator handles the flying commands and another operator handles the payloads on the UAV.
There is therefore a need for an improved solution for high level command of the UAV that solves or at least mitigates at least one of the above mentioned problems.